Red Bull Ring 2015
The was the fifth meeting of the 2015 DTM Championship, and the second held outside of Germany.'Season guide: Spielberg', dtm.com, (DTM, 2015), http://www.dtm.com/en/event/2015-spielberg?language=en-gb, (Accessed 02/05/2015) The Red Bull Ring in Austria played host to races nine and ten of the season, which saw the mountains around Spielberg sing with the sound of 24 V8s. Race one saw Edoardo Mortara lauch himself back into the title fight with victory, having beaten a charging Pascal Wehrlein taking second. Paul di Resta managed to take third, before a controversial Race Two ended with significant consequences for Audi. won the race to take the lead in the Drivers' Championship, in a race where Wehrlein was knocked off the track after instructions by Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. Timo Scheider got a two race ban for causing both Wehrlein and Robert Wickens to crash, with Audi losing all of the points their drivers scored in that race. Dr. Ullrich told the German to hit the back of Wickens when the Canadian ran him wide to allow Wehrlein through on the final lap, with the DMSB immediately disqualifying Scheider. They later slapped Audi with a charge of 'Gamesmanship', fined them 200,000 fine and banned Dr. Ullrich from the pits for the rest of the season. Background With no major news stories emerging in the break between Zandvoort and the Red Bull Ring, attention was focused on the Championship, as Jamie Green dropped points in both races in the Netherlands. and Pascal Wehrlein closed to within five points as a result, with Edoardo Mortara sitting in fourth, just ahead of Robert Wickens. BMW had their best weekend in Zandvoort, as Bruno Spengler, Marco Wittmann and shot up into the top half of the table. HWA left the Netherlands still in the lead of the Teams' Championship, after Mercedes were overhauled by the dominant BMWs at Zandvoort. That said, the Bavarian marque's best team was still only in fourth, behind two Audi teams in Abt Sportsline and Team Rosberg. were at the foot of the table, with the only driver without any points at all. Entries Below is the entry list for the : Qualifying (Race One) Form had seen all three manufacturers dominate the three previous weekends, from Audi at the Lausitzring to BMW at Zandvoort. On Saturday it proved to be the Ingolstadt squad that proved to have the pace, as Edoardo Mortara and Jamie Green secured an all Audi front row, with Mortara the better by almost two tenths.'MORTARA AND GREEN LOCK OUT THE FRONT ROW FOR AUDI', dtm.com, (DTM, 01/08/2015), http://www.dtm.com/en/news/mortara-and-green-lock-out-front-row-audi-2015-08-01.html, (Accessed 02/09/2015) It was not all Audi's way however, as Mercedes claimed half of the top ten spots, with BMW taking one. Indeed, their charge would be headed by Augusto Farfus, who was beaten by the first two Mercedes cars of Pascal Wehrlein and Paul di Resta. They would start the race third and fourth respectively, with Farfus sharing row three with Christian Vietoris in the third HWA entered car. Robert Wickens and Gary Paffett completed the quintet for the three pointed star, with and Mike Rockenfeller rounding off the top ten. With Marco Wittmann the only other BMW backed driver in the top half of the field, the back of the grid was largely populated by Bavarian products, although Lucas Auer of Mercedes had the ignominy of being slowest of the session. With under a second covering the entire field, however, points were not out of the realm of possibility for any driver, with no changes to the grid order post-qualifying. Post Qualifying (One) The results of the qualifying session for the first race are displayed below: Race One With a dry Saturday afternoon greeting the field once again, the tight qualifying session was hoped to translate into an action packed first race.'DTM SPIELBERG: RACE 1 AT A GLANCE', dtm.com, (DTM, 01/08/2015), http://www.dtm.com/en/news/dtm-spielberg-race-1-glance-2015-08-01.html, (Accessed 02/09/2015) Edoardo Mortara was one of the favourites for the race, particularly after he emerged with a margin of two tenths over the rest of the field in quali. But, there were 23 other drivers hoping to beat him, with Jamie Green the most likely to pounce if there were any mistakes. Report That fact was immediately proven by the Brit, as Green beat the Italian to the inside of turn one at the start to snatch the lead. Further back, Pascal Wehrlein beat Paul di Resta off the line to hold third, while Augusto Farfus lost out to Christian Vietoris. The tight and narrow circuit was expected to cause incidents at the start, but the clean getaway meant that Green could work to build an early lead and control the pace. grids to a halt at the front of the field.]]But, it was not to be Green's day, as his Audi ground to a halt at the start of the second lap with a gearbox failure. His demise, which saw him limp the ailing RS5 out of the first corner, scattering cars across the track and giving an opportunist di Resta a chance to overtake Wehrlein. As the Scot climbed into second place, the field calmed down, awaiting the activation of DRS on lap four. The first man to take advantage of DRS was Wehrlein, who re-passed di Resta after slip streaming the Scot into the braking zone into turn two. He proceeded to attempt to close the gap to Mortara, who had quickly broken the one second margin for DRS activation. Di Resta was left to fend off the rest of the field for third, while made an identical move on Gary Paffett to begin his climb up the order. Adrien Tambay took advantage of Mike Rockenfeller's move on Bruno Spengler to pass the pair of them in short order, as Marco Wittmann forced his way past Paffett. Martin Tomczyk became the third retirement from the race, following Robert Wickens who had retired with an unspecified issue earlier on. As the race passed the halfway mark, Paffett was striking back at Wittmann by taking the place, with the pair remaining locked together. Their duel, however, cost them enough time that Tambay and Rockenfeller drew onto the rear splitter of Wittmann. That allowed Paffett to escape for the time being, as Rockenfeller made two decisive moves over the following laps to move from tenth to eighth. The first saw pull a confident move past Tambay into turn two, before a three lap stalk of Wittmann saw him climb further into the points. celebrates his third career victory.]]The closing minutes of the race saw Spengler tumble further down the field, succumbing to two physical, but fair, moves by and Maxime Martin. Farfus, meanwhile, was drawing onto the back of Vietoris, although he would need a swift manoeuvre to get past, with Ekstrom coming on strong. As it happened, the Brazilian was unable too, with Vietoris successfully blocking his attempt into turn three on the final lap which allowed Ekstrom to pounce. The lightest of taps on the back of the BMW and the Swede was through at turn five. But, at the front, victory went to Mortara, as he and Wehrlein fought a fight that never happened, simply trading fastest sector times. Their pace proved to be relentless, as they dropped a lonely di Resta by almost ten seconds by the end of the race. Vietoris did not have to suffer an attack from Ekstrom to finish fourth, with the Swede ending the day in fifth. The result meant that Wehrlein and Ekstrom leapt ahead of Green in the Championship. Result The full result from race one is displayed below: Qualifying (Race Two) Unlike Saturday, Sunday was a rather wet affair, with the Hankook wet tyres dusted off and bolted to the cars.'AUDI ALSO LOCKS OUT FRONT ROW OF THE GRID ON SUNDAY', dtm.com, (DTM, 02/08/2015), http://www.dtm.com/en/news/audi-also-locks-out-front-row-grid-sunday-2015-08-02.html, (Accessed 03/09/2015) The conditions proved to be the best for , as he beat stablemate Mike Rockenfeller by just 0.005s to make an all Audi front row. The rest of the top five saw Gary Paffett beat Pascal Wehrlein and Robert Wickens, as a poor display by BMW meant they failed to get a single car in the top half of the field. With Audi and Mercedes sharing the top ten evenly between them, as Saturday winner Edoardo Mortara and Timo Scheider claimed sixth and seventh. With Christian Vietoris and Paul di Resta beating the fifth Audi of Adrien Tambay, a BMW fan would still need to look down a further four places to see their first car. , and Daniel Juncadella took the eleventh to thirteenth slots, before Martin Tomczyk led the BMW charge in fourteenth. Tomczyk and his BMW stablemates were off the pace significantly in the wet, with the German qualifying slower by almost twice the margin that covered the entire field on Saturday. With BMW also left to pick up the bottom five places, only joined by one Mercedes and two Audis in Lucas Auer, Jamie Green and Miguel Molina. With almost three and a half seconds covering the field, and the rain set to continue for the rest of the day, BMW did not look in the best position. Post-Qualifying (Two) The results of qualifying for race two are shown below. Race Two If qualifying was wet, the build up to the second race of the weekend was a swim in the ocean, with the start delayed initially for ten minutes.'Race 2 Highlights - Rewind - DTM Spielberg 2015', youtube.com, (YouTube: DTM, 02/08/2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy_r3b9Qw8k&index=9&list=PLrjmhNF7Jz1wPYNOKWbjQzhB31mufQdKw, (Accessed 03/09/2015) The officials also announced that the pitwindow would be removed, although teams would still have to complete mandatory pit-stops.'DTM SPIELBERG: RACE 2 AT A GLANCE', dtm.com, (DTM, 02/08/2015), http://www.dtm.com/en/news/dtm-spielberg-race-2-glance-2015-08-02.html, (Accessed 03/09/2015) The DMSB then decided to start the race with the rain easing, although they decided that the safety car should lead them off the grid at the very least. Report The safety car stayed on circuit for the first ten minutes of the race, coming in at the end of lap six, releasing who was the only man to react. Christian Vietoris went for a bounce through the gravel early on, as did several other drivers as they misjudged their braking zones in the poor visibility. That said, the track was beginning to improve, with several drivers opting to pit to get some valuable clear running. completes an impressive move on Mike Rockenfeller.]]Ekstrom, in the mean time, was well away at the front, building a steady gap of 3.6 seconds over Mike Rockenfeller, who soon fell to Gary Paffett. Pascal Wehrlein and Paul di Resta were the latest men to enjoy a trip through the gravel, with the German's second trip dropping him from sixth to ninth a few minutes later. Wickens] and Edoardo Mortara were duelling over fourth, the position swapping between them numerous times. As Daniel Juncadella forced to make another stop as his first was judged to have been under the safety car (having stopped on the lap that it came in), Mortara broke away from Wickens and began to push Rockenfeller. With rain beginning to increase once again, Paffett was closing on Ekstrom for the lead, while Rockenfeller lost out to Mortara in their stops. Wehrlein, meanwhile, was making his comeback, passing Lucas Auer for eighth, with Ekstrom just starting to counter Paffett's charge. As the final drivers made their mandatory stops ( concluding the regulation pitstop action), Ekstrom was left in the lead with Paffett second and Mortara third. di Resta and da Costa were the main attraction, with the Mercedes driver instructed to hand back twelfth to the BMW youngster after an illegal overtake. But, this was a minor incident compared to what was just about to happen, with Wehrlein catching Scheider and Wickens for sixth. With a few minutes to go, the Canadian ran wide to allow the German through, before making up for his mistake by snatching sixth back from Scheider. Wehrlein's charge meant he caught up to the back of them, and, with the young German a team mate of Wickens and at the pointy end of the Championship, the Canadian tried to help him out. On the last lap, Wickens placed his car in the middle of the track to block, and slow, Scheider, which allowed Wehrlein to snatch seventh from the Audi. .]]With Wickens then opening the door for Wehrlein on the exit, before seemlessly cutting in front of Scheider to block him once again, a furious outburst from the Audi resulted in a costly series of events for the Ingolstadt manufacturer. Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich told Schedier to hit the back of Wickens in retaliation, and with minimal margins between him and Wehrlein, the tap by Scheider had a double effect in the braking zone at turn three. Wickens was poweless to avoid Wehrlein, and the pair spun into the gravel and out of the race, with Scheider continuing on for sixth. Ekstrom, meanwhile, had gapped Paffett after the stops and won by almost five seconds, one of the biggest margins of the season. Mortara had been well off their pace but took third, with Rockenfeller fourth and in fifth, ahead of Scheider. Auer made a late pass on for seventh, with the latter securing his first points with eighth, as Vietoris and di Resta completed the points, the Scot having cleanly passed da Costa at the second attempt. But, the result was in dispute, and the race organisers disqualified Scheider from the result moments after the podium celebrations.'DMSB PRONOUNCES SENTENCE FOR GAMESMANSHIP', dtm.com, (DTM, 26/08/2015), http://www.dtm.com/en/news/dmsb-pronounces-sentence-gamesmanship-2015-08-26.html, (Accessed 29/08/2015) In the break that followed until the Moscow round, the DMSB reviewed the incident and punished Audi on a charge of 'Gamesmanship'. Their investigation highlighted Dr. Ullrich's radio message, and resulted in a two race ban for Scheider, a ban from the pitlane until the end of the season for Ullrich and all of Audi's points from race two being recinded. Fortunately, the latter punishment was only to affect the Brands' Championship, with an additional fine of 200,000 to be paid to the DMSB. Results The second race final result is displayed below: ** Wickens, Wehrlein, Blomqvist and Juncadella all classified despite retiring. *† Scheider disqualified for causing a collision. Milestones * Standings jumped to the top of the Drivers' Championship, as Jamie Green tumbled to fourth. Edoardo Mortara and Pascal Wehrlein were the others to jump in front of him, although the German remained in third through Mortara's efforts. Gary Paffett was now in fifth, as Mercedes made huge progress in the Brands' battle, leveling Audi's score. HWA remained atop the Teams' Championship, their tally of 150 points keeping them twelve ahead of Abt Sportsline. BMW lost their only top five team from the summit of the Championship, as the second Abt Sportsline and HWA teams made gains in the battle. ART Grand Prix were another team on the move, leaping up into the top ten, as remained at the foot of the table. Only point scoring drivers and teams are shown. References Videos and Images: * References: Category:2015 Races Category:Red Bull Ring Category:Races